Investigation of low velocity impact behaviour of honeycomb sandvich composites produced by three dimensional printer

Sandwich composite structures are widely used in automotive, marine and aerospace applications due to their high bending strength,ability to absorb energy and vibrations. In this study, the cellular core part of the sandwich structure is in honeycomb geometry and the reactions of these structures to damping energy by exposing them to low-speed impact testing were studied experimentally and numerically. The core part of sandwich composite structures consists of thermoplastic material consisting of ABS and PLA, while the layer part consists of glass fiber/polyester mixture. A three-dimensional printer was used when the core part of these sandwich composite structures was produced. Sandwich composite samples with 2 different cell Heights and 3 different cell sizes were subjected to low-speed impact testing at 3 different energy levels and their physical and mechanical behavior was studied. Samples of sandwich composite structure were modeled at Solidworks after low speed impact testing and numerical analysis was performed in the ANSYS Workbench package program. The experimental and numerical results of the samples showed that the ABS material's ability to resist impact and damping energy increases as the cell size decreases in honeycomb structures with the same cell height. In the same way, PLA thermoplastic material has also increased energy absorption attitude with reduced cell size. However, when the energies given to the samples were examined for both thermoplastic materials with the same cell size and the same cell height, it was experimentally determined that ABS material ingested more energy than PLA material. The experimental results were compared with the numerical data in the ANSYS Workbench package program and the results were shown to be parallel. It has also been determined that PLA material has more energy damping capability than ABS material, and this damping increases with cell height.